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Improving Peak Oil Credibility

General discussions of the systemic, societal and civilisational effects of depletion.
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Improving Peak Oil Credibility

Unread postby shortonsense » Tue 23 Mar 2010, 21:55:32

This topic comes about because of a recent exchange between AirlinePilot and I, the results of which were apparently 2 different polls to try and determine the mix of UberDoomer,Peaker,Cornocopian,Utopianite.

The summary of that conversion is as follows:

Short: Peak Oil is associated with crackpots and therefore loses credibility
Airline: We aren't all Doomers, stop characterizing us at this website that way
Short: Have you taken a poll
Airline: Poll appears.

The underlying comments which generated this exchange relate to the following, I submit that peak oil "gets no respect" because it associated with the likes of nutjobs and crackpots who use it to their own ends. Website subscription and book sales, honorariums or solar ovens, it just doesn't matter, the game is BAU in the form of internet sales, and peak oil fear mongering is simply the means to an end. There is also the individuals on the forums, pushing the nonstop 9/11 trivia, the faked moon landings, the real moon landings which found aliens instead (yes, I have references for these as well), massive starvation in America, you name it, it becomes connected to peak oil through proximity, and what might be limited to a single giggle from a curious passer by becomes hysterical laughter in short order. And presto...peak oil credibility goes right out the window.

I advocate that if peak oil could disassociate itself from such nonsense, it might be taken more seriously. General public familiarity with even a small component of the resource depletion issue, without the related crackpottery, is a good thing. People who are better aware of a credible and serious issue are more likely to be receptive to proposed solutions and such.

Feel free to advocate a position on the topic, but can we please refrain from allowing the conversation to degenerate into the normal pro/con positions papers as various advocacy groups defend their pet theories.
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Re: Improving Peak Oil Credibility

Unread postby davep » Tue 23 Mar 2010, 21:59:13

I'm not sure this site is peddling solar ovens etc. LATOC maybe, but go and ask them that question.

The vast majority of posters who have come and gone eventually get to some equilibrium in their own mind on the subject, and leave. This leaves the die-hard monomaniacs here, such as the truthers, the zombie horders and the cornu-trolls. It puts people off coming back.
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Re: Improving Peak Oil Credibility

Unread postby shortonsense » Tue 23 Mar 2010, 22:39:08

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', 'I')'m not sure this site is peddling solar ovens etc. LATOC maybe, but go and ask them that question.


My comments are not site specific. People learn from different sources, peak oil newbies are as likely to run into Ruppert as they are LATOC or TOD or this place. Certainly it might not seem fair that the public can develop a sense of peak oil from LATOC (the gold standard for gibberish groupthink), but peak oil is as linked to them as it is to PO.com and the various other places.

Once PO gets painted with the crackpottery brush, convincing any regular person of its value is more than difficult.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', '
')The vast majority of posters who have come and gone eventually get to some equilibrium in their own mind on the subject, and leave. This leaves the die-hard monomaniacs here, such as the truthers, the zombie horders and the cornu-trolls. It puts people off coming back.


I would venture that it isn't the residuals which put people off, but the idea that within 5 minutes of surfing the site, and checking the most active topics, as I posted on the other night, you don't actually find peak oil conversations, but political and climate change barrages. Now, that IS a site specific comment, but the same technique applied at the Temple of Groupthink generates the same results, except the topics are just plain idiotic. The faked moon landings versus the aliens NASA is hiding being my favorites of course.
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Re: Improving Peak Oil Credibility

Unread postby mos6507 » Tue 23 Mar 2010, 22:56:29

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonsense', '
')peak oil credibility goes right out the window.


Huh? You're here to mirror JD's position in peak oil debunked, which is that peak oil is real, but nothing to worry about. So if peak oil has no credibility, why does that matter? Adaptations will happen just-in-time. The market, (moderate) lifestyle change, and innovation will come to the rescue. Serious hardship (let alone die-off) will be averted. So why do you care???

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonsense', '
')People who are better aware of a credible and serious issue are more likely to be receptive to proposed solutions and such.


That's just it. In your world it's NOT a serious issue, because it is self-correcting.
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Re: Improving Peak Oil Credibility

Unread postby shortonsense » Tue 23 Mar 2010, 23:44:07

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonsense', '
')peak oil credibility goes right out the window.


Huh? You're here to mirror JD's position in peak oil debunked, which is that peak oil is real, but nothing to worry about.


Actually, I am here because I believe that resource depletion is an important economic issue, and I am distressed that the topic is being sullied by crackpottery.

As far as "nothing to worry about", that is dependent on how a particular person has been doing for the past 5 years since it happened. Certainly for the more prepared it hasn't been any big deal, Airline Pilot and I being just 2 examples.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '
') So if peak oil has no credibility, why does that matter? Adaptations will happen just-in-time. The market, (moderate) lifestyle change, and innovation will come to the rescue. Serious hardship (let alone die-off) will be averted. So why do you care???


I think my first sentence covers it pretty well.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '
')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonsense', '
')People who are better aware of a credible and serious issue are more likely to be receptive to proposed solutions and such.


That's just it. In your world it's NOT a serious issue, because it is self-correcting.

Momma didn't raise no fool. I am doing just fine and dandy in THIS peak oil because I paid close attention during the LAST one. Now, you don't have to like that response, but it is completely true. More than a decade before Colin wrote his eye opening article for Scientific America I looked around the world, examined Jimmys "running out" claims, studied the Saudi moves to teach the rest of OPEC a lesson and the resulting consequences to price, marveled at the SUV boom, kept an eye open for any Ehrlich type symptoms, and I began to prep. Those preps were built on the foundation that fossil fuels were a finite resource, and that some day they would get more expensive and a smart feller could profit from that knowledge. Didn't know when it would happen, but I bet that it would happen in my lifetime.

Paying attention to the world today, and making choices based on what I think it will look like a decade or two down the road will make the difference between a permanent retirement on round the world cruises or watching my pennys to make sure I've got some spare pocket change to help the kids out of a jam.
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Re: Improving Peak Oil Credibility

Unread postby Loki » Wed 24 Mar 2010, 00:17:48

I don't think peak oil cares what kind of crackpots believe or don't believe in it. Like global warming, it does not require your belief. It ain't Jehovah or Zeus, it's just an uncomfortable scientific fact.
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Re: Improving Peak Oil Credibility

Unread postby mos6507 » Wed 24 Mar 2010, 00:31:59

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonsense', '
')Certainly for the more prepared it hasn't been any big deal, Airline Pilot and I being just 2 examples.


Then you write out your peak oil manifesto and see how well it moves people.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonsense', '
')kept an eye open for any Ehrlich type symptoms, and I began to prep.


So why do you care, again? You're set for life, right? Do you feel threatened if you're the only one prepped and everyone else goes over a cliff? Might they drag you down with them? That would sound eerily similar to ZOMBIE HORDES.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonsense', '
')round the world cruises or watching my pennys to make sure I've got some spare pocket change to help the kids out of a jam.


Round the world cruises paid for by US fiat dollars on a ship powered by post-peak bunker fuel? How many failed states will be on the list of ports of call? Your idea of investing your way out of peak oil and drinking a cocktail with your pinky in the air while everyone else suffers is not as iron-clad as you think.

Listen, nobody takes peak oil seriously regardless if the message is delivered by a borderline mental patient like Ruppert or an aging hippie like Richard Heinberg. I'm not saying the tinfoil helps matters, but even if you filter it out, it's a non-starter.

You've got a fairly broad range of "types" pushing Peak Oil. Politicians like Roscoe Bartlett, social commentators like Kunstler, lefty green activists like Heinberg and Bill McKibben, right-wingers like T Boone Pickens, industrialists like Richard Branson, financial guys like Jeff Rubin, ex-oilmen like Colin Campbell and Matt Simmons. And the theory itself was created by an oilman. You've had various widely televised specials covering peak oil, such as Earth 2100, The Incredible Journey of Crude, theatrical movies like Collapse, and a host of direct-to-video documentary fare. Then you have the endless stream of books that look at the issue from different angles.

So to say that peak oil has been co-opted by tinfoil is to ignore this diversity. If anything, the reason peak oil is so full of tinfoil is that perhaps tinfoilers are the only ones willing to believe it, which is kind of pathetic.

Here is an example of what I'm talking about. Richard Heinberg gets eviscerated by the conservative canadian rag.

Richard, who says he hates traveling because of the CO2 emissions, AND who also says he has given up macro-level solutions for peak oil, for whatever reason, chose to go up there and hand out red pills. Apparently a full dose red pill that follows the house that jack built all the way to the neolithic revolution, mind you. But when you're arguing with people who don't know how to debate, it's pointless. They have their adolescent AM talk approach to dismissing data they find objectionable. (I'll leave it to other posters to relate the last sentence to you.) Anyway, all you need to know about this guy's reaction to Heinberg can be gleaned from his writing history.

Note this choice passage:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')And so we must countenance, prepare for, and indeed enforce “The End of Growth.” After all, fish stocks are going, topsoil is going, water is going, rock phosphates are going. And “we’re about to lose the tiger.”


So he relates this long list of things that are going away, not really disputing that they are going away, and still believes that "the market" will solve everything. Don't worry be happy. I can't believe people really believe this garbage. The cognitive dissonance denialists like this display is almost as pathological as the worst tinfoiler syndromes.

Apparently you share some of this guy's opinions, especially on climate science, right shorty?

I really don't see how you're modifying your life in such a way that will address all aspects of limits to growth. Maybe you can get by if oil hits $200/bbl but then another limit on liebig's law will hit you in the face. This is the reason the doomstead meme is so popular. It's the closest anyone can come to creating their own biodome and writing off the rest of the world to purgatory. Even that is obviously flawed, but there isn't much better anyone can do. We're all stuck with eachother. Even if you get everybody to believe peak oil according to your vision, then you're stuck tolerating AGW doomers, or overshoot doomers based on peak soil, ocean acidification, etc... The fact is, you are the JOE LIEBERMAN of peakers. You really should be hanging out with Michael Lynch and the boys who casually dismiss peak oil as a mere speed bump on our way towards 20 billion population with flying cars and warp drive.
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Re: Improving Peak Oil Credibility

Unread postby shortonsense » Wed 24 Mar 2010, 01:04:31

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Loki', 'I') don't think peak oil cares what kind of crackpots believe or don't believe in it. Like global warming, it does not require your belief. It ain't Jehovah or Zeus, it's just an uncomfortable scientific fact.


I disagree with this one big time. Hubberts profile was science, and it was in a resource depletion context, it was handled in the way science does such things.

Post Hubbert, it has been turned into something else. His basic idea, as badly as it has been battered by the multi peaking profile and the onslaught of unconventional production, which has been bad enough, has been churned up and bastardized into a scheme, a scheme to sell stuff, a scheme to scare people, a scheme to trigger much cooler scenario's, some want to claim its geologic, all evidence to the contrary, others economic, which is correct, but it wasn't an idea Hubbert cast into the literature until later in his career.

And to some...it certainly is Jehovah and Zeus....its Rapture..... or the secular equivalent. Their involvement is why the credibility problem exists.
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Re: Improving Peak Oil Credibility

Unread postby yeahbut » Wed 24 Mar 2010, 04:15:17

Mos is quite correct. Your thread is pointless and a waste of time, and in fact deeply ironic. You have made the same post for years now(it must be terribly dull, but I presume you take some weird pleasure from the exercise)- PO is already here and everything is fine, go about your day. There are a few here who might be accused of undermining the credibility of this site, and of the concept of PO itself, but none has demonstrated the prolific persistence that you have. You want to improve the credibility of PO? Take a little break.
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Re: Improving Peak Oil Credibility

Unread postby dsula » Wed 24 Mar 2010, 08:20:39

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('yeahbut', 'M')os is quite correct. Your thread is pointless and a waste of time.

How can you say it's pointless. It's a lot less pointless than the majority of the posts on this forum. For my taste short is a bit too optimistic and too techy-fixy but his anti-doomer arguments usually make sense.
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Re: Improving Peak Oil Credibility

Unread postby davep » Wed 24 Mar 2010, 08:44:26

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dsula', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('yeahbut', 'M')os is quite correct. Your thread is pointless and a waste of time.

How can you say it's pointless. It's a lot less pointless than the majority of the posts on this forum. For my taste short is a bit too optimistic and too techy-fixy but his anti-doomer arguments usually make sense.


He's forever going on about peak being 2005 and that we all said zombie hordes are round the corner, which we didn't. It gets very dull. He loves his strawmen.
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Re: Improving Peak Oil Credibility

Unread postby dinopello » Wed 24 Mar 2010, 09:10:31

I think the topic is worth discussing. Any time you say you think that any aspect of someone's current lifestyle will be compelled to change in significant ways in a timeframe of a decade or so, you run the risk of coming off like a crackpot. Tell people their life is going to change and more than likely they think you are leading into telling them about a new iPhone App.

The issues of geological and "above ground" constraints that affect oil supply I think have plenty of credibility though so I don't think it is that aspect of the discussion that needs examination. I'm willing to consider any hypothesized meaning, outcome, or response to depletion without becoming "turned off", but many people apparently are not. The PO.com site admins have recognized this and have made various attempts to sequester or partition some of the more controversial issues (Out of this World, Self Defense, etc).

One of the big unknowns in all this is how people and governments will react so just hearing what people think they need to be doing is informative to me so I like having all that stuff available for viewing. I don't really get why some get so worked up by others posting what they think is connected to depletion or what will be the response and what they think they need to be doing. Well, unless it just becomes repetitive and annoying.

The only sure fire way to sort out what is credible is to wait. Until then, I try to keep an open mind while also evolving my own point of view on the topic.
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Re: Improving Peak Oil Credibility

Unread postby Ludi » Wed 24 Mar 2010, 10:06:20

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dsula', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('yeahbut', 'M')os is quite correct. Your thread is pointless and a waste of time.

How can you say it's pointless. It's a lot less pointless than the majority of the posts on this forum. For my taste short is a bit too optimistic and too techy-fixy but his anti-doomer arguments usually make sense.


He's forever going on about peak being 2005 and that we all said zombie hordes are round the corner, which we didn't. It gets very dull. He loves his strawmen.


I think folks here do tend to make overly doomy short-term predictions. See the Predictions threads to check on the accuracy of these predictions. They are mostly inaccurate. I realize we haven't been as diligent in tracking optimistic forecasts - I'll try to get on it. :)
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Re: Improving Peak Oil Credibility

Unread postby Ludi » Wed 24 Mar 2010, 10:08:50

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '
')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonsense', '
')round the world cruises or watching my pennys to make sure I've got some spare pocket change to help the kids out of a jam.




I'm not convinced an educator who can't spell "pennies" is very credible. :|
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Re: Improving Peak Oil Credibility

Unread postby shortonsense » Wed 24 Mar 2010, 11:37:36

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', '
')He's forever going on about peak being 2005 and that we all said zombie hordes are round the corner, which we didn't. It gets very dull. He loves his strawmen.


I do not require strawmen when dealing with historical facts. I simply use and reference reputable sources who made contemporaneous predictions:

http://www.bluegreenearth.us/archive/ar ... -2005.html

and ask the obvious question....why didn't peak go as predicted?

It is reasonable to ask how many CURRENT prognostications are nonsense as well. If it isn't obvious to you, it certainly is to me, some people are quite wrapped up in their prognostications, and have no sense at all about how poorly such things has worked out in the past.
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Re: Improving Peak Oil Credibility

Unread postby AAA » Wed 24 Mar 2010, 11:38:04

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonsense', ' ')I submit that peak oil "gets no respect" because it associated with the likes of nutjobs and crackpots who use it to their own ends.


I would agree 110% with this statement.

I work in the oil industry and talk about peak oil on a weekly basis with people. Many peope associate peak oil with conspiracy theoriest wearing faraday cage tinfoil hats, hiding from the government in a remote area of Nevada with a stash of guns, gold, and food anticipating the end of the world.

When I do talk about peak oil and give different references I NEVER mention peakoil.com because this site would convince anyone that peak oil is a bunch of unemployed 40 year old guys living in their mother's basement predicting the end of the world.

90% of the conversations on this site are worthless junk about nothing. There is some really good content but you have to wade through a lot of trash to get their. Even topics that are great usually get sidetracked by individuals who have agendas.

For Example:

I created a topic on starting salaries. I got the idea from theoildrum.com

Loki hijacked it by ranting about drilling, mining, and the environment
Ludi hijacked it by making her point about about the definitions of rich and what salary means.

Why can't we just keep stuff on topic and delete the stupid stuff like multiple polls to prove ones point.
How can Ludi spend 8-10 hrs/day on the internet and claim to be homesteading???
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Re: Improving Peak Oil Credibility

Unread postby shortonsense » Wed 24 Mar 2010, 11:45:15

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '
')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonsense', '
')round the world cruises or watching my pennys to make sure I've got some spare pocket change to help the kids out of a jam.




I'm not convinced an educator who can't spell "pennies" is very credible. :|


I agree. The quality of any idea should be judged based exclusively on how well its advocate can spell, no other criteria is worth evaluating. :-D
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Re: Improving Peak Oil Credibility

Unread postby davep » Wed 24 Mar 2010, 11:59:30

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonsense', '
')It is reasonable to ask how many CURRENT prognostications are nonsense as well. If it isn't obvious to you, it certainly is to me, some people are quite wrapped up in their prognostications, and have no sense at all about how poorly such things has worked out in the past.



"Some people" I can accept. But tarring the majority of the board with the same brush as these people is wearing a bit thin.
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Re: Improving Peak Oil Credibility

Unread postby Carlhole » Wed 24 Mar 2010, 12:12:22

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonsense', '.')..individuals on the forums, pushing the nonstop 9/11 trivia, the faked moon landings...

It was from reading people like Colin Campbell, Richard Heinberg, Mike Ruppert, Barrie Zwicker, etc. - all Peak Oil luminaries - that I became interested in the link between the events of 911 and the problem of depleting fossil fuels - with all the accompanying wars and geopolitics. Maybe you should bitch at the PO movers and shakers at the top?

Excerpt from his 2005 book, "Oil Crisis", by Colin Campbell, founder of ASPO

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Colin Campbell', 'T')aken from the section entitled, The Grand Plan, p.188

The Double Simulation

So, we may conclude that it was decided to put in hand a bold plan of action. It took courage to do so, they were evidently up to the occasion, deciding to implement it on September 11, 2001. The details of the operation remain obscure, but the many curious features of the event can hardly be denied or easily explained. They include:

The normal defenses being shut down for that day for a simulated hijacking.
The rapid identification as hijackers of a group of Egyptians and Saudis, who had been given minimal flying training at a school in Florida, being supervised by intelligence minders in their apartment building.
Four airliners were reported as being hijacked, having exceptionally low passenger lists.
Two of the airliners were filmed striking prominent buildings in New York, which exploded in what struck some analysts as a controlled demolitions, the steel from the sites being later exported to China as scrap, preventing forensic analysis. The death toll was held to a minimum by timing the incident to occur before most people arrived at work, some being alerted to the last minute by the Odigo messaging service not to go to their offices that day. Some senior executives also found themselves attending a charity event at an airbase.
The Pentagon was depicted as another target. One explosion occurred leaving a small hole in ground level without trace of a crashed airliner.
The passport of one of the alleged hijackers was found in the New York rubble, despite the strength of the explosion.
An Israeli film crew was in position on the roof of an adjoining building to film the event.
The maneuvers undertaken by the air craft would test the skills of an experienced pilot, being fired beyond those having no more than brief training in light aircraft, suggesting that the aircraft may have been flown by remote control.
Within seconds of the event, a sinister figure in an Afghan cave had been identified as the ringleader of a global organization, now named Al Qaeda, threatening the United States. He looks the part in his beard and outlandish robes, making excellent TV imagery. He was easily controlled having been previously on the CIA payroll. Various videos and messages from him declaring a holy Muslim war were broadcast. Knowing full well where he was, may have made it easy to plan an unsuccessful search.
Finally, the vice president took that dates be out of sight, evidently having taken command from some control bunker, while the president found himself reading to children at a school in Florida, even sing no surprise when an aide burst in to inform him of the incident.

The operation was pulled off immaculately despite a few difficulties that were experienced when the intelligence services both at home and abroad got wind of what was afoot, leading to many subsequent claims that the government had failed to take proper note of the reported threats.For good measure, a brief anthrax scare followed to bring home to every individual fear that they were personally threatened. A universal sense of fear was a critical part of the strategy.

Before long, the B-52s had been armed and sent into action. Images of the new sinister enemy in the form of Afghan tribesmen with their roads, beards and headdresses, astride donkeys with a musket across their backs, were soon broadcast around the world. Within a few weeks, it was all over. The Taliban government fell to be replaced by a puppet regime, led by Hamid Karzai. He was a Western-oriented men, who had previously been a consultant to Union Oil of California. The action now was depicted as having a moral objective. Afghan women appeared before the cameras to explain how they have been oppressed by the previous regime, which had denied them education or the opportunity to find careers as dentists, teachers or shop assistants.

The setback to the grand strategy came when the Kashagan and prospects off Kazakhstan, once billed as rivaling Saudi Arabia, was finally drilled with disappointing results. It soon became apparent that the Caspian would not in fact lessen dependence on Middle East oil to any significant degree. It was a setback for the small one, for stage II of the grand plan involving an attack on the Middle East itself had been the primary mission all along. A direct initial attack in the Middle East, with its obvious oil links, would have been widely opposed both at home and abroad, and so it was expedient to lead into it through a skirmish in remote and irrelevant Afghanistan. That campaign served its purpose by putting the country on a war footing, to which the people were not condition. Even so, some further pretexts were needed. Iraq was accordingly accused of having threatening weapons despite evidence to the contrary from the UN inspectors. It was not even necessary to pretend that the country was in any way linked to the events of September 11 as Saddam was already established a villain in the popular mind after the first Gulf War, itself being the result of an earlier strategy related to oil price as discussed in Chapter 4.

The grand plan, if that is what it was, might have made eminent good sense in an abstract way from the distance of Washington where academic strategists spent their days moving chess pieces around the global scene. The man in command, who appeared to have the vision or knowledge of history and geopolitics that barely reached West Texas, may have readily accepted, having been further encouraged by the notion that he was in some way divinely inspired. He may also have been influenced by other lattes from the arms industry wanting new business, from the financiers and investment people wanting to deflect attention from the basic weakness in the stock market and the dollar, and of course by sundry Israeli lobbyists. With a shrug of the shoulder, he may have said "if that's what it takes, folks, let's do it, but try to keep the casualties down". The successful efforts to limit casualties tend to confirm that the action was not the work of those for whom the only good American was a dead one.
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Re: Improving Peak Oil Credibility

Unread postby AAA » Wed 24 Mar 2010, 13:14:09

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AAA', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonsense', ' ')I submit that peak oil "gets no respect" because it associated with the likes of nutjobs and crackpots who use it to their own ends.


I would agree 110% with this statement.

I work in the oil industry and talk about peak oil on a weekly basis with people. Many peope associate peak oil with conspiracy theoriest wearing faraday cage tinfoil hats, hiding from the government in a remote area of Nevada with a stash of guns, gold, and food anticipating the end of the world.
Obviously you need new friends. The one you have are apparently clueless, otherwise they would not so gleefully dismiss calls for conservation, mitigation, personal and social responsibility and especially preparation. Do you really believe this is a joke? Have you read the Hirsch Report? Do you have a better platform for disucssion? What is wrong with free-ranging scenerio discussion and planning.

I have an idea. If this place is so inadequate, why don't you give your friends at the White House a ring, and institute a reasonable Peak Oil planning group? I am sure Obama (or his successor Sara Palin) is just hanging on every phone call waiting for it to be YOU. :lol:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AAA', 'W')hen I do talk about peak oil and give different references I NEVER mention peakoil.com because this site would convince anyone that peak oil is a bunch of unemployed 40 year old guys living in their mother's basement predicting the end of the world.
Then why are you here? I hope you are not so vain to suggest your mere presence "contributes credibility." Neither your degree, title, and or professional experience is a guarantee of original thought or creative analysis. And that is what this issue demands.

I have seen oil professionals come and go who have contributed little or nothing. Many are stuck in a ancient paradigm, where reserves grow forever, production is only constrained by demand or cartel, and there will always be another swing state. Wrong my smug friend.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AAA', '9')0% of the conversations on this site are worthless junk about nothing. There is some really good content but you have to wade through a lot of trash to get their. Even topics that are great usually get sidetracked by individuals who have agendas.

For Example:

I created a topic on starting salaries. I got the idea from theoildrum.com

Loki hijacked it by ranting about drilling, mining, and the environment
Ludi hijacked it by making her point about about the definitions of rich and what salary means.

Why can't we just keep stuff on topic and delete the stupid stuff like multiple polls to prove ones point.
Who cares about starting salaries? I sure don't This is a peak oil web site. Not an oil field bulletin board. Do you really think your pretty little salary, 401k, or special parking space is going to protect your from social collapse? Only an over-specialized cog like yourself, with no world experience, historical perspective, or biologic understanding would be so vain to believe they are exempt from the simple universal truths--without adequate energy complex organisms (individuals, lifeforms, social structures, societies) die or change. I have been here 5 years, aware of peak since 1998 and seen zero nada real change. Just prevarication and BAU.

And when idiots like Short assert so confidently that peak occurred and it means nothing, ask yourself or your smart financial friends whether our economy can really stand another 7%/GDP energy cost regime? But that is exactly where we are going.

Thanks for proving my point pstarr.

I could not have done it better if I tried.
How can Ludi spend 8-10 hrs/day on the internet and claim to be homesteading???
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